Fired Police Chief, Village Agree To Settle Lawsuit, 'Move Forward'

FLOSSMOOR, IL — Legal action brought by former Flossmoor Police Chief Jerel Jones will end, after he and the Village agreed to a settlement, a lawyer said Thursday.

"Following extensive discussions, the Village and Mr. Jones have come to an understanding regarding their respective viewpoints about the case," Steve DiNolfo, attorney with Ottosen DiNolfo Hasenbalg & Castaldo, Ltd. said in an email statement. "Plaintiff Jones has agreed to enter into an agreed settlement to resolve the case and to end the litigation in its entirety and allow both sides to move forward."

Following his termination in March, Jones filed the lawsuit claiming racial discrimination and retaliation, specifically by Village Manager Bridget Wachtel. In response to public outcry after his termination, Flossmoor Mayor Michelle Nelson cited "serious operational and administrative lapses under his watch."

Attorneys for Jones fired back at the time, alleging Jones' firing was a violation of his civil rights, and that Jones received "disparate treatment" from Wachtel, according to court documents. In the federal lawsuit filed by the Disparti Law Group, Wachtel is accused of issuing "self-contradictory and hyperbolic performance memos to Jerel that criticize seemingly every aspect of his performance, his speech and speech patterns, his initiative and non-initiative..."

The lawsuit alleged that Wachtel created an environment in which "Jerel must do exactly as Wachtel or other white administrators say he must do, and he must diminish his own thoughts, beliefs, and ideas, and accept Wachtel’s."

The lawsuit claimed Wachtel "imposed a master-slave dynamic between her and Jerel and, if he did not fit himself into that expected dynamic, he could not be Police Chief."

Chief Jerel Jones was hired in March 2023, following the departure of former chief Tod Kamleiter, who retired in December 2022 after nearly three decades with the department. Jones was the department's first Black police chief.

"I worked hard to build relationships with members of the community, local businesses, and the law enforcement community in both Flossmoor and the Southland," Jones said at a press conference announcing the lawsuit.

Wachtel fought back against accusations of racism and retaliation made in the lawsuit, and called for some of the language within it to be removed, decrying some of the allegations as a "deeply personal and defamatory evisceration" of Wachtel depicting her as a racist, the complaint reads.

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Attorneys for Wachtel asked for some of the language to be removed from the lawsuit, saying it "a "not appropriately included as part of a short and plain statement of the claim," according to the filing.

Among other allegations, the filing claims Jones' lawsuit included the "tremendously offensive, totally unnecessary, and personally damaging paragraphs" without any factual basis, and that "in a transparent attempt to drum up political, media and community ire, they were advanced solely and specifically as part of a defamatory scheme."

The settlement was announced Thursday afternoon. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

Jones has since gone on to become deputy police chief in Richton Park.